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Teenagers are often priced out of the labor market by the [#permalink]
13 Sep 2005, 02:04

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Difficulty:

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Question Stats:

0%(00:00) correct
0%(00:00) wrong based on 0 sessions

Teenagers are often priced out of the labor market by the government-mandated minimum-wage level because employers cannot afford to pay that much for extra help. Therefore, if Congress institutes a subminimum wage, a new lower legal wage for teenagers, the teenage unemployment rate, which has been rising since 1960, will no longer increase.

Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the argument above?

(A) Since 1960 the teenage unemployment rate has risen when the minimum wage has risen.
(B) Since 1960 the teenage unemployment rate has risen even when the minimum wage remained constant.
(C) Employers often hire extra help during holiday and warm weather seasons.
(D) The teenage unemployment rate rose more quickly in the 1970â€™s than it did in the 1960â€™s.
(E) The teenage unemployment rate has occasionally declined in the years since 1960. _________________

How can it be B? B requires the test taker to have some sort of financial background; given that as time passes, the value of the minimum wage in present dollars depreciates in accordance with inflation (amongst other factors...) Thereby, saving the small business owners from paying higher wages to the teenagers. What's the OE on this one?

I just wrote out a detailed expanation for this but I got timed out...and so I'm going to rewrite this.

Okay, here's another way to approach this problem. Let's look at the conclusion and the premise.

Conclusion: Congress should pass a sub min-wage law to keep teenage unemployment from rising.

Premise: (1) Employers can not afford to hire teenagers. (2) Since the 1960's, teenage unemployment rate has been rising.

Now, we are looking for an answer that will WEAKEN this argument, so anything to the extent that said that the new law will not help teenage unemployment levels from declining will be perfect.

Let's exam the answer choice:

A. supports the conclusion that a min sub wage law is necessary. so, we can eliminate.

B. this works because it goes against the conclusion by saying that teenage unemployment went up even when min wage is constant. If the logic that they use to support this works, then teenage unemployment should not have went up but should have remain constant.

C. Does not work, out of scope.

D. Does not work, 1970's was not mentioned.

E. Occassionally decline is arbitary, it could have increase somewhere down the line.

B. this works because it goes against the conclusion by saying that teenage unemployment went up even when min wage is constant. If the logic that they use to support this works, then teenage unemployment should not have went up but should have remain constant.